


be kind, i beg you

by gauras



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, post-MAG 159, sometimes u write 15k of nothing but two characters getting to know each other and that's Okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22681813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gauras/pseuds/gauras
Summary: “Fine,” Jon says, and he tries to ignore the sulky tone of his voice, “fine.What do you suggest?”Martin pauses, like he’d not expected Jon to give in so easily. Jon’s never been particularly agreeable, but he still feels vaguely offended by the blatant surprise. “W-we,” Martin stammers, clears his throat, continues on much more confidently, “we go in together.”Or: it takes close quarters and a full 24 hours to finally get them on the same page.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 149
Kudos: 1025





	be kind, i beg you

**Author's Note:**

> additional warnings: small mentions of (dead) spiders (it’s an abandoned safehouse), past violence (it’s daisy’s safehouse), broom violence (dust), painful amounts of oblivious pining (jon pov, y’all)
> 
> listen. i know that literally every single person in the 200,000 year history of the species _Homo sapiens_ has written scottish honeymoon get together fic. i didn’t want to feel left out!!
> 
> this started out as an excuse to write bedtime rituals and then it became… this. i’ve tried to convince myself that what i’ve written isn’t simply rambling domestic tedium but, well, i’ve written what i’ve written.
> 
> title from yola's [keep me here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6cB44foHQA)

The safehouse isn’t much to look at, the first time they make the trek up its long gravel drive. Martin has a duffel that was filled in a haphazard rush, Jon a rucksack whose contents are a genuine mystery; Basira packed it for him, when the Lonely spat him and Martin out on a street corner on the far side of Chelsea and the Institute was crawling with monsters and hunters and the police, threw it at Jon and a key at Martin and told them to get the hell out of London.

A low, crumbling stone wall surrounds the safehouse and its garden spills over it, wildly unkempt. Roses, having overtaken their trellis, crowd the front gate, hips a fetching coral red against their dull green leaves. Their petals line the path up to the house, a moldering carpet of dead yellows and browns. Jon idly wonders what kind they are, what they’d look like in bloom, then abruptly Knows that they are rambling roses, _Rosa filipes_ ‘Kliftsgate,’ prized for their vigorous growth and unusually large clusters of flowers whose petals are a creamy white, stamens an eye-catching yellow. He shuts his eyes against the onslaught of information and the rush of black at the edges of his vision, like he’s stood from his desk too quickly after several hours bent over a statement.

Beside him, Martin eyes the wall and overgrown trellis that gives the safehouse the appearance of a forgotten fairy garden, lets out an unimpressed, “Hm,” and goes to step over the wall. It’s easy for him, what with his long legs and all. Martin surveys the garden, locked in the throes of autumnal growth and decay, while Jon fumbles his way over the wall, unsteady after the brief swell of unwanted Knowledge.

The safehouse looms as they pick their way along the cracked stone path, crushing dead wildflowers beneath their shoes. From the corner of his eye, Jon watches Martin trail a hand through the late flowering grasses that erupt from either side of the path. 

The door, once painted a deep green, is a peeling, mistreated thing, left to the tender mercies of the sun and rain. Basira entrusted Martin with the key, but right now he seems a little lost, looking over his shoulder at the riot of plants barely contained by the wall, the sloping hill they hiked up, the thin copse of trees that hugs the southern bend of the drive.

“The door, Martin,” Jon says at last, hand going out to steady himself on the house’s side when he sways. His bag isn’t that heavy, but after all the panic and despair and relief, after the hours of planning and traveling and stilted conversation, the rush of energy from Peter’s statement and its expenditure to Know the way out of the Lonely, he’s _tired,_ and the bag upon his back seems to drag him down. Perhaps Basira packed him two dozen round river rocks.

Martin startles, like he’d forgotten Jon is there with him, and blinks down at him with wide brown eyes. “O-oh, right, let me just--” He drops his duffel in favor of patting down his pockets for the key. They share a moment of matching panic as the thought of _Oh, Christ, what if it fell out on the train or the cab or the road or it’s still in Martin’s flat_ rises and then Martin makes a soft sound of triumph, pulling the key from one of those useless little half-pockets that no one ever uses. Jon raises his eyebrows. Martin doesn’t blush, exactly, but he makes the face that would’ve once accompanied one. “I thought it’d be safer,” he says, defensively.

“Right,” Jon says as Martin fits the key into the rusted lock and turns it with difficulty. The door squeals as Martin forces it open. Gloom and dust pour out from the doorway and they share a long look. Martin seems uncertain, so Jon takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and goes to step through.

“Wait!” Martin hisses, latching onto the sleeve of Jon’s borrowed hoodie. “What are you doing?”

Jon thought it was rather obvious. “We can’t stand here all night, Martin.” They could, actually, but the evening light is fading quickly and Jon would very much like to lay down before he falls down.

“No, I know, it’s just--This was _Daisy’s,_ it could be dangerous!”

“Yes, well, all the better I go first, then, hm?”

Martin makes a face that says he does _not_ like that sentiment. “Jon, you look like you’re about to keel over!”

Jon snorts. When was the last time he _didn’t_ look on the verge of collapsing? “Yes, and _you_ look like you’re still human and could be killed by, I don’t know, a-a booby trap.”

Unimpressed, Martin folds his arms, a steely look in his eyes that’s not necessarily new, but recently uncovered. Dusted off like a long-forgotten heirloom and given a fresh coat of varnish. “So, what, you thought you’d just wander around and set them all off with, with _you?”_ Jon bites his tongue; he doesn’t have a response that won’t just further upset him. “Jon!”

“I don’t know, Martin! I thought maybe the Eye’d tell me if there was anything and if not… better me than you.”

“Okay, well, you might not _die,_ but it’d still _hurt_ you.”

This is ridiculous. _They’re_ ridiculous. Here they are--finally together against all odds, after those long months of painful loneliness, capital _L_ or otherwise--and they’re stood outside in the swiftly falling half-night, bickering like, like, like _children._

“Fine,” Jon says, and he tries to ignore the sulky tone of his voice, “ _fine._ What do you suggest?”

Martin pauses, like he’d not expected Jon to give in so easily. Jon’s never been particularly agreeable, but he still feels vaguely offended by the blatant surprise. “W-we,” Martin stammers, clears his throat, continues on much more confidently, “we go in together.”

Together. Reasonable enough, except the doorway is really very narrow. “I don’t think we’ll fit shoulder to shoulder.” A look of exasperation falls across Martin’s face, a familiar expression that says Jon’s being deliberately obtuse. How Jon’s missed that look. “At least let me go through first.”

A long sigh. Martin taps the fingers of his left hand on his thigh, a little erratic rhythm as he thinks. “Fine. _But,"_ he says, holding out his right hand, “you have to hold my hand.”

 _That’s stupid,_ Jon wants to say. What good will that do? If anything, he’ll just put Martin in danger when something unpleasant inevitably latches onto him and attempts to drag him off into the bowels of the house.

Another, much larger part--one that hasn’t stopped playing their hands-clasped walk in the Lonely over and over again in torturous detail--longs to hold Martin’s hand again. Wordlessly, Jon reaches out and takes it.

Martin’s hand is cool in Jon’s, slightly clammy and a little worn, still just as lovely as Jon remembers. His fingers wrap around the back of Jon’s hand, thumb firm against his knuckles. Jon nods and takes another bolstering breath.

He steps through the door.

Nothing happens.

Jon lets out a sigh of relief, shoulders sinking, and gives Martin a tug. He hadn’t realized how apprehensive he’d been, and now their argument seems terribly foolish. “Seems normal enough,” Jon says as he shuffles forward a few steps to make room for Martin, and then they stand, side-by-side, in the foyer of Daisy’s safehouse.

Martin doesn’t pull his hand away, and Jon doesn’t let go.

The house is simple enough; there’s a small kitchen that melts seamlessly into a sitting room, a long silent fireplace lording over one of its walls. There seems to be a short hallway that leads to what Jon assumes to be the bedroom. It probably teems with hidden terrors.

They step further in, hands still linked, and a plume of dust spirals up from their feet. The floors are a dark, bare wood, handsome enough, but Jon feels a twinge of irritation. Come winter, those floors will be frigid.

Ah. Winter, just a few months away. When was the last time he spared a thought for the future, further than the next question to answer, problem to solve, apocalypse to avert? God. He shoves the thought away. _Later._ He’ll deal with that later.

The front room boasts a coffee table and a lumpy looking sofa, a threadbare rug tossed before the hearth. There’s a window that overlooks the garden and lets in the last of the sun’s light, painting the faded yellow wallpaper in the warm tones of sunset. A glance into the kitchen reveals it to be small, yet serviceable, with a small round table, ancient fridge, and dusty cooker. Hardly any counterspace, but lots of cupboards, so that’s fine.

“It’s… rustically charming?” Martin offers.

“In an abandoned, post-apocalyptic world, maybe.” There’s a distinct lack of ceiling lights. “Does this place even have electricity?”

“It’s got a fridge,” Martin points out. “It must.”

“Well. Perhaps we’ll figure it out tomorrow.” Martin hums. “Shall we see what horrors lurk down the hall?”

Martin squeezes his hand and Jon pauses to glance at him. The sun catches on his chestnut hair, curly flyaways turned to corkscrewing flares of red-gold and his eyes are such a soft, warm brown. “Don’t even joke,” he scolds, and it’s all Jon can do to swallow, nod, and lead the way.

The hall reveals a bedroom, and the bedroom reveals what is, to Jon, the nightmare scenario.

Of course there’s only one bed.

Jon’s always had rotten luck, so it stands to reason that it’d follow him here, too.

Martin makes a strangled noise and when Jon turns to him in concern, he thinks he can see the faintest trace of a blush on his cheeks in the gloom. There’s a bedside table with a lamp set on it, but. No power.

They notice the door set into the far wall at the same time; Martin clumsily disentangles their hands and strides over to check behind it before Jon can stop him.

“Wait--” the word barely escapes his mouth before Martin wrenches it open and images of spiralling corridors and chitinous legs unspool out behind his eyes and then Martin is sticking his head through the door and Jon imagines the fall of a guillotine’s blade, because this is _Daisy’s house_ and there must be _something--_

Martin pulls his head back into the safety of the bedroom. “Toilet,” he says simply and closes the door with a soft _snick._

“R-right.” Jon twists his fingers together, hides behind the curtain of his hair as he tries to wrangle his breathing back to something approximating normal. There’s a beat of silence.

“Bed’s nice.” Martin says from across the room, bent over to test the give of the plush double bed. The shape of his hand remains imprinted in the mattress as he pulls away, then slowly begins to fill in, a line in the sand covered by the rising tide.

“Creature comforts, and all that...” Jon says, then winces.

Thankfully, Martin doesn’t comment, instead runs his fingers back and forth across the bare mattress, contemplative. “How’d she even get it up here on her own? It’s so squishy.”

The image of Daisy struggling with an unwieldy, floppy mattress up the hill is laughable, but-- “Memory foam mattress topper. You can get them sent in the mail.”

Martin peers down at the bed, finds where the topper bulges slightly over the actual mattress, and looks back up at Jon. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Jon rubs the pads of his fingers together, feels the smooth catch of the whorls of his fingerprints against each other. “Look, Martin, I can take the sofa.”

Martin’s face cycles through several emotions, too quick for Jon to catch, before his expression shutters closed. “That thing’s ancient, Jon.”

Jon laughs, a bit nervous. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

“It doesn’t mean you should have to sleep on a sofa that’s probably got bed bugs, or lice, or _something.”_

An involuntary shudder worms through Jon. “Both need a human host, and judging from the dust, no one has visited in a very long time. Besides, there’s, ah, only the one bed, and I’m shorter than you, so, I-I figured I’d take, um.”

Granted, the height difference is only a few inches, but it seems terribly important, right now.

Martin looks at him for a very long time, the bed still a physical barrier between them. Finally, in a voice so hesitant it hurts, he says, “We could share,” and Jon’s heart does a painful beat-pause-double-beat.

He’d thought of that, of course he had, he’s not _entirely_ repressed. Really, it’d make the most sense: conserve heat, safety in numbers, a gentle hand to act as an anchor through the nightmares that no doubt await them, etcetera, etcetera. 

It’s just--Martin had said _loved,_ in the Lonely. Past tense. And Jon knew, he _knew_ that there was no way, what with the coma and the months of isolation, that Martin could still possibly harbor any tender feelings towards him. He’d listened to the tape from before the Unknowing once he returned to the Institute, desperate for any sort of answers and hungry for knowledge. He’d heard the confrontation between Martin and Elias, the things Elias had said to dig the metaphorical knife deep into Martin and _twist,_ and Jon’s heart had broken at the sound of Martin sobbing.

 _Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly._ The revelation of how Martin’s mother had treated him, held side by side with Jon’s cruelty and paranoia, his absence and fumbling attempts to connect, subsequent death and undeath, that had been… well.

Martin’s in a very delicate place right now, and Jon doesn’t want to, to tack on any more hurt. And Jon _wants,_ so very badly, to accept Martin’s offer, to crawl into bed with him and hold him close, but Martin had said _loved_ and he doesn’t want him to offer something that he’ll no doubt regret in the morning, and really, it’s better this way. These days, Jon’s wants typically result in someone else’s unending misery.

“Jon?”

Jon takes a breath, hadn’t even realized he wasn’t breathing, and blinks. Martin is worrying at the cuff of his jumper’s sleeve, an anxious tic that had once driven Jon mad. Now, it just makes his chest ache.

He should say no. This isn’t wise. He should say no, save both him and Martin the heartache and confusion, but Martin looks skittish, like he’s moments away from dissipating into fog and low-rolling mist, and Jon wants, desperately, selfishly, to soothe some of that fear.

“Alright,” Jon says, slowly, tasting the word. Martin’s shoulders slump as he sighs, measured yet shaky. “You can… I’ll make the bed.” They’d shuffled passed a closet on their way down the hall. It’s been what feels like eons since he last fought with fitted sheets and too-small pillowcases, and he’s dully surprised to find he longs for a chance to play at normalcy.

“O-oh. Okay, if you’re… I’ll be, um, in there?” Martin nods, decisive despite his stammering, and slips through the door to the toilet. He leaves it open a crack. For just a moment, Jon watches the pilled back of his jumper before it disappears, then spins on his heel and marches from the room.

Jon tries not to think about what awaits him in that room as he collects a bundle of slightly sour-smelling sheets, stretched out on tiptoes to reach them on the shelf second from the top. The lower shelves are filled with an array of weaponry; clearly Daisy had her priorities.

Martin is still absent when Jon returns, but he can hear the faint sounds of movement from behind the door. Jon deposits his armful of linens and gets to work.

The charm of the situation quickly dissolves into muttered curses as he battles against the combined forces of a slightly too large mattress and sheets that have shrunk in the wash. The memory foam, which promises to cradle him gently when he lays down to sleep, sucks at his hands and tries to pull him into its inescapable embrace when he struggles to fit a corner of the sheet around the mattress. The exertion makes his pulse throb at the base of his skull.

“I saw the Stanley knives,” Jon says, conversationally, eyes fixed on the opposite corner of the bed, daring the sheet to pop up when he stretches it further, “I’m sure we could find another use for you. Bandages, maybe. Would you like that? All soaked in blood and viscera and--”

“Threatening the bedding?” a voice asks and Jon yelps, his grip on the sheet slipping, and with a dull _fwump!_ , all Jon’s hard work is undone, collapsed into a graceless pile that favors the top half of the bed. “Sorry,” Martin says, not sounding particularly sincere, and he hides a smile behind a hand when Jon glares at him.

Jon straightens, pats down his hair and breathes in, coughs a little as the scent of mildew catches in his throat. He flaps a hand at Martin. “It’s this damn sheet,” Jon says, venomously, “an agent of the Spiral, perhaps, for all its efforts to drive me mad.” He reaches for it again as Martin pushes away from where he’d been leant up against the doorframe. Abrupty, Jon wonders how long he’d been stood there, watching Jon curse and fumble.

“That sounds legitimate,” Martin says. He picks up the opposite corner of the sheet, nose wrinkling as he gets closer. “Oh, yuck.”

Jon makes a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. “We certainly have our work cut out for us.” He gestures loosely to the sheets, and the dust, and the safehouse’s general state of disrepair.

“When don’t we?” Martin mutters, and Jon can’t help but privately agree.

They work in tandem to make the bed--Martin’s phone acting as torch when the sun finally sinks below the horizon--and together they corral the mattress and force the fitted sheet onto it, smooth out the flat sheet and pile every blanket they can find onto the bed as the chill damp of night begins to settle into the house.

By the time they’ve finished, they’re both sweaty--Jon’s always surprised at how much energy it takes just to make a bed--and the air smells old and dusty, comforting and _homey_ and no, he cannot afford to think like that.

Jon clears his throat and Martin looks up from where he’d been fingering the wobbly motifs of a crocheted afghan. “Do you mind if I…?” He motions towards the door of the toilet, left ajar.

“Oh! Um, g-go for it.”

Jon taps on his phone’s torch as he ducks into the toilet, hesitates before leaving the door open a crack as Martin did--trying to ignore the vague sense of discomfort it causes--and takes in the room. Sink, toilet, bath but no shower, cool tile underfoot and a narrow window with frosted glass set high in the wall. “Pull yourself together, Jonathan,” he mutters as he flips on the tap, rests his elbows on the sink’s edge as he waits for the faucet to pump out the brackish water that’s sat in the pipes for who knows how long. 

They’re on the run from monsters and the police, fugitives hiding in the depths of the sprawling Scottish countryside, and here he is, mooning over the act of making a bed with someone he lo--cares for greatly. Not only is it wildly out of character, it’s also deeply pathetic.

The water finally runs clear and Jon puts his hands under the stream, ignores the icy shock and spreads his fingers to watch a fine tremor work through them. He glances up at his reflection in the tarnished mirror and cringes. His hair hangs around his gaunt face in lank, greasy waves. Christ, he’d leant his head against Martin’s on the train ride up.

They certainly don’t have hot water, but perhaps a wash in the morning wouldn’t be remiss. Jon shuts off the tap and pats his now freezing, wet hands against his cheeks. He makes his way over to the bath and leans over to examine it.

“Oh, good lord!” Jon scrambles backwards, nearly tumbling over the toilet in his haste to escape. It makes a hollow sound as he bangs his heel against the bowl. There’s scuffling from the bedroom and then Martin comes bursting in, alarm plain in his eyes.

“Jon? What’s wrong?” Martin reaches worriedly for Jon, but Jon shakes his head and forces his way out from where he’d wedged himself between the toilet and sink in his panic. He dusts himself off and tries not to pay any mind to how the tremor in his fingers has graduated to a full-bodied shake.

“I-it’s nothing,” Jon says, mouth terribly dry, “just, ah. Startled.”

Martin’s brow furrows, eyes flitting over Jon. He’s always been observant, and he no doubt catches the way Jon’s hands tremble as he pushes his hair behind his ears. “What by?”

“A-ah. Um.” He flicks his fingers towards the bath, bites his lip as Martin takes a step closer to the thing, barely resists reaching out to snag his wrist before he gets too close.

“Oh,” Martin breathes, “poor things.” That’s certainly one way to describe the awful, many-legged graveyard that is the bath. Jon makes a strangled noise. “I wonder if they came up the drain…”

_“Martin.”_

“Sorry! They probably came in through the window, or something, and fell in. I think spiders don’t actually crawl through drains as often as people think? If that helps?”

“It does _not.”_

“Right, sorry!” Martin looks torn between comforting Jon and mourning the desiccated spider husks that fill the stained bath. “I can clean it out, if you want?”

_“Please.”_

“Okay, let me just--” Jon trails Martin out of the room, not wanting to spend any amount of time alone with those curled and crumpled up horrors, dead or no. He read Carlos Vittery’s statement, for Chrissake. Ghost spiders exist.

Martin goes to the linen closet to presumably track down a rag to clean the bath. Jon rather hopes it doesn’t reenter the house and continues passed to the living room. He collects both their bags from their spots near the door, then pauses next to the sofa and stares at the long-dead fireplace.

That creeping feeling of low-level fear has taken up residence in his gut and the back of his shoulders prickles with goosebumps. Jon shudders, feels the short hairs at the nape of his neck rise as the image of dead spiders sprawled against stained porcelain springs, unbidden, to the front of his mind.

Goddamn. It’ll be a miracle if he manages to sleep at all tonight.

“So, I flushed them--oh, hey, hey, you alright?” Martin steps into view, leans slightly to catch Jon’s eyes.

Jon blinks. “I… Yes. I’m fine, Martin.” He doesn’t look convinced, wringing the spider-corpse rag between his hands. Jon consciously does not let himself recoil. “I just. I don’t like spiders.”

“I know,” Martin says. His mouth has an unhappy twist to it. “I’m sorry, though. I should’ve--I didn’t notice, before.”

“It’s fine.” Jon glances down and realizes he’s still holding both their bags. He offers Martin his duffel. “Oh, here.”

Martin takes it without looking, his eyes still searching Jon’s face. “Positive you’re okay?”

“Yes. Just jumpy, I suppose.”

“I don’t blame you.” Martin pauses and hums. “Well, I took care of the bath. Plugged the drain and checked the window, too. Everything’s locked up tight.” Jon is hit with a sudden rush of affection for this kind, thoughtful, lovely man; a strange sort of warmth that reaches his bones and finally smooths his still-bristling hair.

“Thank you,” Jon says, and he tries to pour as much sincerity as he can into those two words. Martin flushes and hefts his bag.

“O-of course.” He winces. “I wouldn’t thank me too soon, though. It’s still not, not _great._ ” A nervous laugh. “I don’t think Daisy was using it for its _intended_ purposes.”

“What’s that--” It hits him, then. One of the few drains in the place. Wouldn’t do to attract wild animals to one’s hunting grounds. The carrion birds would be especially bothersome. Poachers in Africa have taken to lacing carcasses with poison to kill vultures, because the authorities rely on the circling birds to alert them of illegal activities. Daisy wouldn’t do that; she likes their keen eyes and bald heads that keep them clean of viscera. Best to take care of it at home. Keep the buzzards out of it entirely. Images assault his mind, red-splattered and colored with gore. “Ah.”

“Mm.”

Martin’s looking at him with concern, again, probably able to tell Jon has just Known something. Stupidly, Jon feels guilty. He’s not the one that was sacrificed and nearly lost to the Lonely, and yet look how easily they’ve fallen back into their old roles.

Jon sighs. His head hurts. “Bed?”

They find some candles in the kitchen and return to the bedroom, dance briefly around picking a side of the bed. Jon settles down on his half while he waits for Martin to complete his bedtime routine. He’s left the toilet door open again, and Jon can hear faint humming accompanying the rush of the faucet.

To distract himself from thoughts of Martin brushing his teeth or removing his contacts on the opposite side of the thin wall, Jon takes this time to root through his bag and see what Basira packed him. Several soft, worn shirts, a button-up or two, a myriad of jumpers--none of which will fit properly. Jon pauses when he finds a faded sweatshirt emblazoned with the _Ghost Hunt UK_ logo. Appropriated from Melanie, it would seem.

Now that Jon looks closer, he realizes that the primrose yellow button-up with a splotch of rust red on the collar is Daisy’s, the maroon long sleeve athleisure top Basira’s. Jon doesn’t know if it was intentional or not, and his stomach clenches at the image of an exhausted Basira piling whatever clothing she could find into a bag, pulling from the communal laundry basket that had appeared when they all began living in the archives. He presses the button-up to his nose, imagines the smell of citrus and grave dirt, and blinks away the prickle of tears.

He sifts through the rest of the bag’s contents: pants, trousers, socks, a toothbrush. A single crumpled statement, likely in case of an emergency. He sends Basira a silent thank you.

No hairbrush, though. Or elastics. That’s fine.

Jon is in the middle of finger combing his hair, grimacing at the feeling of grease and strands of loose hair woven between his fingers, when Martin exits the toilet. His cheeks are red and his glasses are balanced low on the bridge of his nose and there’s a smear of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth. Jon thinks he’d like to kiss him.

“That water is _cold,”_ Martin announces as he sits on his side of the bed, one leg drawn below him. His knee is bare, the hem of his pants riding up to expose more of his thigh. There is a birthmark on the inside of his left knee, shaped a bit like a melting fish. He’s wearing a loose shirt whose print is so faded that Jon can’t read it.

Jon looks away.

“We’ll have to either acclimate or figure out the power,” Jon says to his lap. “Or boil water on the hob.”

Martin snorts. “Whatever it takes to have a hot bath.”

Rather than respond, Jon returns to combing his hair. He comes across a nasty snarl, put there by either days of sleepless worry, the flight through the Institute, or the brisk winds of the Highlands. Or--far more likely--some combination of the three. “Martin?” A sleepy hum, and Jon glances up to see Martin leant against the wall, eyes shut. “You didn’t happen to pack a hairbrush…?”

“Mm. No.”

Of course not. Martin had cut his hair, sometime over the six month period of Jon’s coma. Cropped the sides close, left the top stylishly long. Jon misses his longer hair; how it had framed his face, the mismatched pins that kept his unprofessional, overly-long fringe out of his eyes. Now, the sides are growing out, shaggily brushing the tops of his ears, starting to curl again. Still short enough, however, that a quick run-through with his fingers will suffice.

Jon resigns himself to picking out what is likely the first of many knots with his nails.

He’s made his way through about half of his hair, a tangle of broken ends and strands that have fallen out clutched in his fist, when Martin rouses himself enough to follow up with a bleary, “Why?”

Jon startles, pulls too hard on the current knot, and cringes at the sound of snapping hair and the dull pain that briefly flares. He’d honestly thought Martin was asleep. “Ah, it’s not important... My hair tangles easily.” Martin is looking at him with heavy lidded, hazy eyes, clearly barely holding onto consciousness. “You should get some sleep.”

“Mm.” He struggles up, out of his boneless slump, and presses his fingers to his eyes, pushing his glasses up his forehead. He shakes his head and they slide back down, sitting crooked on his nose. Disheveled, but marginally more awake. “Only if you do, too.”

Despite the way sleep is obviously trying to drag him down, the soft edges of his voice blurred by exhaustion, Martin has a stubborn set to his jaw. Jon sighs, thinks of his half-combed hair and how it will drive him mad until he gets it sorted, and nods.

“Alright.”

Martin turns down the covers while Jon goes to change into pajamas and glare at his reflection in the mirror as he brushes his teeth with enough force to make his gums bleed, were he still human. As it is, the foam is barely pink when he spits into the sink.

Once he’s done, stood in the chilly air in just his pants and a stretched-out shirt Georgie gave him years ago, Jon is suddenly keenly aware of how knobbly his knees and pointy his elbows are; a collection of sharp angles and hard bones with hardly any muscle or fat to pad them. He’s never been good at sharing a bed, too restless and fidgety for a good cuddle, but now, with his knife-elbows and spindly fingers, it won’t be anything but excruciatingly unpleasant for Martin. Especially with how small the bed had looked as Jon glanced over his shoulder, Martin smoothing the blankets across his lap meditatively. The perfect size for Daisy to sprawl out on, sure, but far too small for two grown men. Perhaps the sofa…

No. Jon shakes his head and forces himself back into the bedroom. No. He’s going to share the goddamn bed with Martin and not be _weird_ about it for once. Martin had asked, after all, and he owes him this much.

Jon climbs onto his side of the bed, doesn’t look at Martin or how his glasses make his eyes just that much bigger, doesn’t notice the subtle heat trapped in the sheets or how nice it feels on his cold legs, doesn’t take in the wrinkle of Martin’s sleeve from being shoved, not folded, into his bag or the way the candlelight catches on the smudges on his glasses lenses or the shadows that pool below his eyes that peter off into splashes of freckles across his cheeks or the press of his lips as he shifts, looking vaguely uncomfortable and Jon looks anywhere but the faint flush that spreads down Martin’s throat.

“It’s, hah, a-a cheesy cliche, isn’t it?” Martin says, breaking the now awkward silence. “I mean, all of. All of this.” A cottage getaway, the one bed, the candlelight that could only be described as _romantic._

Jon panics, rattles off, “The seascape in the hall covers up two bullet holes, a machete slash, and a splatter of blood and brain.”

“Well.”

“That’s a bit less cliche, right?”

“I guess. Ruins the mood a bit, though.” Instead of being put-out, however, Martin looks thoughtful. “Murder cottage,” he murmurs. “Could be poetic.”

Jon doesn’t grace that with a response--instead, he shifts to lay down. His earlier assessment was correct: the memory foam is _heavenly._ All his aches and pains don’t miraculously disappear, but they do spread out to reach an equilibrium of sorts. Like those physics demonstrations where someone lays on a bed of nails. Except maybe _Jon_ is the bed of nails and…

That doesn’t make any sense. He’ll leave the metaphors to the resident poet.

“Candles out?” Martin asks.

“Yes. Um, please.”

It’s really not that late, but once they’ve each blown out their candles, darkness settles thick over the room. The window has neither shades nor curtains, but the moon has yet to rise over the moors, and despite all their brilliance, the stars do little to illuminate the room. Jon rolls onto his side, back to Martin, the window, the room at large, and faces the door.

It is little more than a cutout of black in the middle of a slightly less black backdrop. Did they lock the front door? Does the door to the bedroom have a lock?

Would that even matter?

Martin’s breathing is slow and measured. Jon knows he’s not asleep--he snores. Loudly. It had been a point of great annoyance during Jane Prentiss’ siege on the Institute. Jon wiggles his toes. The bed is cold outside his and Martin’s shared body heat.

The door is unlocked and there was that statement… Paul McKenzie, the father of the young man who was taunted by the thing that became Michael throughout his childhood. He should check.

But there was also that statement Melanie recorded. Benjamin Hatendi. _The blanket never did anything._

Hmm. What to do, what to do.

Jon drums his fingers against the divot in his side where he’s missing two ribs. The door is a cutout of black on black and the window lets in nothing but night. The room is very cold. Wet.

There must be something. Lurking in the hills. Pressed into the walls of the house, waiting for their guard to drop before descending upon them. It can’t have been this _easy._ People on the train hadn’t even looked at them twice.

The door to the toilet is still open and even though Martin said he checked the window and plugged the drain, _ghost spiders exist._ That door is at his back.

Jon flips so his shoulders are pressed to the mattress, but he can’t decide which door to watch. Both are dangerous. If only he had more eyes.

He should lock the front door.

“Jon,” Martin groans, hand fumbling in the small, empty space between them, “relax.”

Perhaps it is due to the not-so-late hour or the way Jon’s head swims with low-level pain and anxiety, but he reaches back and snags Martin’s hand. He’s surprised at how much it _gives,_ and _oh,_ okay, he’s not been the only one struggling in the close dark.

“Sorry.” He squeezes Martin’s coolly semi-corporeal hand once.

Martin squeezes back, twice.

The room is cold and dark and Jon doesn’t have much in the way of insulation and Martin’s side of the bed doesn’t dip as much as it should. So Jon wriggles closer, their arms pressing together from shoulder down to where their hands entwine. The toilet is probably full of ghost spiders but _Martin_ plugged the drain and checked the window, so Jon will trust him in this, in anything, in everything.

Jon tugs their joined hands up to his chest, then turns his head to watch the door to the hall.

* * *

He sleeps, some, and that is the surprising thing.

Jon wakes at half two, the Knowledge difficult to resist so early in the morning, even as it makes his teeth ache. He checks his phone anyways, in petty defiance of the Eye, and its screen blinks _02:36._ The battery icon in the corner flashes miserably, nearly out of power.

He hadn’t seen a charger amongst the things Basira packed. Oh, well; it’s not like the thing will be much use out here.

Martin still lays next to Jon, breathing steady and quiet. His hand is still trapped in Jon’s, warm, now, and more than a little bit sweaty. Jon’s fingers are cramped and he does his best to not hiss as he slowly straightens them and slips them from Martin’s now slack grip. The tips tingle as blood rushes back into them.

Moonlight now trickles in through the window, pale and watery, and Jon’s eyes have finally adjusted to the dark well enough to see more than vague shapes.

Jon props himself up on his elbow and looks down at Martin for a moment. Yes, it’s creepy; no, he does not care.

Martin looks… neutral. Not peaceful, but not under any apparent distress. Just. There. It’s an expression Jon’s become intimately familiar with over these past few months: a carefully crafted mask that gives away nothing other than the fact that there’s something _to_ give away. What he could be dreaming of to cause such a look, Jon has no idea, and he shoves a tea towel below the door in his mind to keep it that way.

There’s a lock of hair that has flopped against Martin’s forehead. And yes, maybe it’s selfish and takes the whole watching-the-man-he-cares-for-sleep thing to another level, but Jon reaches out to hook a finger around that errant curl and brush it aside, the back of his nail barely skimming along the ridge of Martin’s brow.

It’s too much for Jon’s heart, however, and each beat of the useless thing in his chest rings out _loved-you, loved-you, loved-you._

“Christ,” Jon breathes, barely audible. What a goddamn mess he makes of things.

Sleep is unlikely to find him again, and no matter how much he’d like to, he probably shouldn’t spend the rest of the night staring at Martin’s face. That’s too far, even for Jon, despite the nagging whisper at the back of his mind that tells him this is what he _is,_ now: something that looks and watches and stares. At least Martin looks less neutral and more calm, perhaps verging on quietly pleased. Jon hopes his dreams are pleasant and slips out from the bed.

The seascape that covers up the violence cut into the wall is little more than a frame of blank grey as Jon picks his way passed, doing his utmost to tread quietly. Unfamiliar in the dark, the front room is just as dusty as before. Jon locks the front door; he tells himself the relief he feels is foolish as he flips the deadbolt. Sometimes a cottage is just a cottage.

He pokes around in the kitchen a bit, for lack of anything better to do, opening cupboards and moving old melamine dishware to inventory what they have and what they might need. Cans and dried food fill one cupboard; Jon pulls them out and stacks them according to food type. All the peaches go to one side of the counter. Jon doesn’t mind them, but he’ll let Martin decide their fate.

The fridge is empty, for which Jon is immensely grateful, although he does find what looks like an icepick in the freezer, hidden behind an empty ice cube tray. It seems… well used, and Jon puts it back where he found it, gingerly closes the door, and leaves the kitchen.

Unearthing Daisy’s trove of weaponry seems like a task best suited to the light of day. 

There’s not much to do at… three in the morning (his phone tells him, clinging desperately to its last sliver of life), especially in an isolated murder cottage. Jon considers fetching the lone statement from his bag in an attempt to soothe the headache that’s been dogging his heels, but he’s not that desperate yet and doesn’t want to run the risk of waking Martin. At least one of them should be well-rested.

Instead, Jon sits himself down in front of the fireplace and selects several splintery logs from the pitiful woodpile against the wall. He busies himself with peeling the logs apart, bit by painstaking bit, and amasses a small pile of kindling. He pricks himself more than once and reflexively sucks on his injured fingers, but beneath the pain, there is no welling of wet crimson.

Odd that he should miss the sight of his own blood.

Building a fire is strangely meditative. Gather the kindling into a small pile in the center of the hearth, lean the bigger pieces against each other in a loose cone, leave plenty of room for the fire to breathe. Stack the larger logs where they might catch but not suffocate the flame. Flick the lighter, yank his hand away at the first brush of heat, then stare, transfixed, at the way the small flames lick greedily at the shavings. Their tips glow orange-white, curl as they blacken. Soon, the fire crackles and pops, the murder cottage’s third inhabitant.

When the dry heat across his face becomes too much to bear, Jon retreats to the sofa, where he curls up against the crook of one arm. The hairs on his legs stand up in the chill. He really should have put on something more.

 _Sleeping on the sofa,_ Jon reminisces. Just like the days toward the end of his and Georgie’s relationship.

Well. No. He’s not _sleeping_ out here; just trying to be considerate of Martin, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong. He’s not sleeping on the sofa. He doesn’t have to deal with the way relief and hope and want war with grief and despair and guilt in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t have to think about how lucky he is, to have Martin here, with him: solid, steady, and smelling of mothballs instead of the ocean. Doesn’t have to think about what a damn idiot he is, sleeping on the sofa because the glimpse of Martin asleep and vulnerable made the want he can’t have _ache_. Because he’s not sleeping. On the sofa.

The dance of the flames is hypnotizing, its sparks and glowing embers dazzling.

Jon falls asleep. The fire eventually fizzles and fades.

* * *

A clatter wakes him and Jon blinks against the harsh morning light, disoriented. Sleep has done nothing for his headache and he fumbles when he pushes himself up from the sofa, body heavy and back aching.

From over the back of the sofa, Jon can see Martin bent over at the waist, scrambling to collect cans of food that have fallen to the floor. He’s muttering to himself. Cursing, from the sound of it.

“Martin? What happened?”

Martin startles and drops a can in his surprise. He yelps, yanks his foot back--narrowly avoiding crushing his toes--and whirls to face Jon.

“Jesus, Jon, don’t _do_ that!”

What, wake up? “Sorry.”

Martin pinches the bridge of his nose, breathes slowly, then drops his hand and shakes his head. “No, it’s fine, I just--” he turns back to collecting the cans, “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” Jon agrees, heaving himself up. The headache slides from his temples to the base of his skull, oily thick, and he pauses when his vision briefly rushes black. “Attacked by canned goods?”

“Ha ha. _Someone_ decided to reorder the kitchen and stack them six high.” He sets the cans down on the counter, peas and green beans, although it looks like some green chiles have sneaked into the stack. “Which is stupid. Really, it’s four, at most.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Strong opinions on stacking cans.”

“They’re--they were _precarious!_ A hazard! You don’t put six cans in a stack!” Martin begins piling up the fallen cans--stopping, pointedly, at _three_ in a stack--placing one on top of another with more force than necessary. Jon’s headache pounds in time with the slam of metal on metal.

“If you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly blessed with an overabundance of counter space.” Defensiveness worms its way into Jon’s voice. Is this a row? Are they having a row over _cans?_

“Then leave them in the damn cupboards, Jon!” Martin’s voice rises in pitch, but he’s still stacking cans with a single-minded determination, moving on from peas to corn. “Don’t go sneaking off in the middle of the night and make a mess and leave it for someone else to clean up!”

“Martin--”

“Y’know, I didn’t say anything, because I thought you’d come back? I thought, ‘Oh, there goes Jon, probably to stretch his legs, he’ll only be a moment,’ and then you just. Just _didn’t._ And, and I thought we were… that you wouldn’t...” All at once, the fight seems to drain out of Martin and he drums his fingers against a warped can, its top and bottom bulging. Distantly, Jon notes the implications of Martin being awake when he left last night and resolves to never address it. “Should probably toss this one.” He moves to set the can aside, and Jon catches his wrist.

“Look, Martin, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to--I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Martin laughs, just once, a humorless exhale of air through the nose that carries no warmth. It’s then that Jon notices the dark circles, the way his veins stand out blue under the thin skin below each eye. He’s pale in that way one gets after too many nights with too little sleep.

“Christ, Martin, did you sleep at all?”

A careless shrug. “A bit. I’m not really… good at that, anymore.” Another commonality between them, it would seem. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have shouted. You didn’t deserve that.”

It’s probably the least he deserves, after everything. The guilt sits heavy around his shoulders. “It’s alright. I know how sleep can… impact one’s mood, as it were.”

“Mm.” A pause. The air is tense, awkward, nearly stifling. Martin gestures to the cans on the counter. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Cold beans from a can? I think I’m alright.”

“If you say so.”

Martin scrounges about until he finds a can opener and a spoon to pry open his can of yes, cold beans. Jon’s stomach gives an unhappy twist, so he sighs and collects the dried apricots he stumbled across last night. After a moment of painful fumbling, they both sit at the small table. One of the legs is shorter than the others and Martin rests his elbows on the top to keep it steady.

The apricots are stale and taste of dust and do nothing to settle Jon.

Jon typically isn’t one to care, but the silence is oppressive.

“Thoughts about the peaches?” Jon asks at length, tilting his head in their general direction at Martin’s questioning hum.

“ _That_ will be a ‘no, thank you,’ from me.”

“We’ll throw them out, then.”

“I mean, _you_ can eat them. Just seeing them isn’t going to, to, I don’t know.” He taps his spoon against the rim of his can: _one-two-three._ “I tried them again, a while ago. Just to see if I’d gotten over it. Felt like worms in my mouth and tasted like… you remember how they smelled? Like, like a pile of wet towels left at the bottom of a laundry basket that have gone all mildewy? Tasted like that.”

“Eugh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well. The thought of… worm peaches isn’t particularly appealing, so. Thank you, for that, you’ve successfully ruined canned peaches for me.”

“I’ve done you a favor, really.”

Jon folds up the bag of apricots, resolving to put it with the peaches destined to be thrown away. Dust on the tongue, decay on the mind. Lovely.

Martin runs his spoon along the ribbed metal of his can, the noise hollow and muffled by the remaining beans. “Any idea what we should do today?”

“I’d like to get the power sorted, at the very least.”

A pause while they both think. “I miss hot water,” Martin says, miserably.

“It’s only been one day.”

“For _you,_ maybe. You don’t know when I last showered.” Jon doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t know if he _should._ Martin’s eyes go very wide and very round. “R-recently! Recently. It was very recent.”

“I’m sure.”

“It was!”

“Okay, Martin.” Jon can’t help the faint amusement in his voice. In the morning light struggling its way into the kitchen, Martin’s red cheeks look quite becoming. “I believe you.”

“Oh. Um. Good.” He glances about the kitchen. His eyes are a lovely shade of brown, dark enough to fall into, sun warmed stones at the bottom of a crystal clear pool. “I think we should tidy up, too. I don’t know about you, but I’m not loving the whole… dusty, unlived in aesthetic.”

“Thought retro was kind of your thing?”

“This isn’t retro, Jon! This place is just. Dirty.”

“I suppose you have a point.” Jon considers it, remembers the tools of violence scattered about. “We should also collect all of the, ah, weaponry.”

“Mm… Did you see all the stuff in the closet?”

“Yes. Two full shelves dedicated to various means of murder wasn’t exactly startling.” He forces a laugh, “That’s weird, right?”

“Definitely. Our lives are weird.”

A beat.

“I found an icepick, in the freezer.”

Martin pulls a face. “Unlike you, I do _not_ want to know.”

“Hey,” Jon protests, weakly.

Seemingly against his better judgement, Martin asks, “Was it… just the icepick, or?”

“Just the icepick. No rotting, dismembered trophies, or piles of meat, or anything of the sort. Seemed well-loved, however.” Martin’s grimace becomes more pronounced. “Too much? The fridge is empty, too. We’ll need to go shopping, sooner rather than later.”

“I don’t want to think about food,” Martin mutters.

Fair. “Well. Power first, then.”

* * *

They unearth a generator in the overgrown garden, hidden below a thick layer of dead brambles and creeping ivy. They have a brief debate over how much vegetation needs to be cleared before they can run the generator without the fear of setting fire to the surrounding area, then get to work. Neither of them have any gloves, and a cursory search through the murder cottage revealed nothing that might help that hadn’t first been tested upon the human body.

They work very, very carefully.

The brambles are difficult to deal with and painful on their bare palms as they tear them out. They’re then carted away to a distant corner of the garden, where they begin to resemble a funeral pyre as the pile builds. Once the majority of the prickly stems have been cleared away, they each get down on hands and knees to begin the grueling task of ripping ivy from the earth.

At around midday, they take a break, dirty and weary. The thin mist that had hung around early in the morning has burned off, and they’ve both abandoned their jackets and jumpers. Martin wears a flannel shirt, unbuttoned low enough that the beginnings of dark chest hair peek out from the top.

“I’ve always liked the thought of a garden,” Martin says. Jon has his head tipped back, basking in the sun, and he pries one eye open to peer at Martin.

“Yeah?”

“Mmhm. It’s like, you’ve got these little green things that you plant and take care of, you water them and fertilize them, and after a while you have flowers, or, or vegetables, or whatever. And _you_ did that. Nothing would’ve happened if you hadn’t come along and helped them grow.” He picks at some dirt caked to the side of his thumbnail. “Then I realized that plants can’t actually tell you what they _need_ and that I’m actually shit at remembering to water them.”

“I like plants,” Jon says, closing his eye so he doesn’t have to see Martin’s surprised glance. “They’re quiet. Easy to understand. You water them when they get wilty.” He wonders, briefly, what happened to his spider plant when he lost his flat during the coma. It had just put out several plantlets, but he hadn’t had the time or pots to plant them.

“Sometimes they get droopy when you _do_ water them, though! They’re contrary.”

“Perhaps. People are contrary, too, and at least a plant won’t yell at you if you forget its name.”

The sun shines down and a slight breeze picks up. Jon stretches the ache out of his hands and reopens his eyes. Sprawled out in the dirt, Martin looks thoughtful. Eventually, he nudges Jon’s shin with his foot.

“What would you plant, if you had a garden?”

“I… I’m not sure. I’ve never given it much thought.” There is dirt ground into the creases of his palm, the warped lines of his burn scar. Jon rubs at it, idly, sweat and soil mixing together to create a fine coating of mud. “My grandmother liked roses--she was very traditional like that--so maybe… maybe some of those?”

“Mm.” Martin is smiling, now, having shifted to laying flat on his belly, chin propped on a closed fist. “Any particular colors?”

“Ah, she liked, uh. The ones that are yellow in the middle, pink on the edges.” He knows he’s skirting around the question. Martin does, too.

“But what do _you_ like, Jon?”

Giving up the information feels like pulling teeth, and Jon can’t explain _why._ “I like… I think the ones with the um, ornamental hips. Those are nice. To look at. In winter.”

“Like the ones at the gate?” Jon nods. “Those are lovely. I didn’t really know that was a thing.”

Wind rustles through the grasses, bringing with it the scent of sweet autumn clematis and heather. Jon digs his fingertips into the warm dirt.

“You’d be surprised what people can come up with. There are some with, with decorative thorns. Huge things that are such a bright red that they look dipped in blood. Very, ah, very edgy. Those are… nice, too.” Martin is grinning and Jon groans, covers his face with his hands and lets himself flop onto his back. “This is daft.”

“No, no! I think it’s sweet.” Damp begins to seep into the back of Jon’s shirt, but his face is hot from the sun and embarrassment. “So. Roses. I think that’s fitting.”

“Hm?”

“You and roses: you’re both so prickly.”

Jon props himself up on his elbows to fix Martin with a weak glare.

Martin laughs, loud and bright. To Jon it sounds like music.

Jon waits for the laughter to die down before he asks, “Well, what would you grow? If plants weren’t so deliberately difficult, that is.”

“Sounds familiar,” Martin jokes, but his eyes lose their focus as he squints down at the ground, deep in thought. One of his fingers starts to dig a little trench in the hard-packed dirt, back and forth. Jon sits back up, draws one of his knees up to his chest to rest his chin on. “Vegetables, probably,” Martin says at last. “That sounds nice; to grow something useful. Plus it would save a bit of money.” Jon nods, not that Martin sees, focused as he is on the small pit he’s dug, lips twisted into a slight frown. “That’s boring, though.”

“Practical,” Jon offers and Martin gives him a little grin, looking up at him through his dark eyelashes. “What kinds?” he prompts.

“Mm. Tomatoes?”

“Technically a fruit.”

“Oh, shut up,” Martin laughs. “They have cute little flowers. Or, or squash. I like zucchini.”

“Again,” Jon begins and Martin flails wildly to slap him on the leg, “not a vegetable,” he finishes, only slightly smug.

“Ridiculous,” Martin mutters, but there is a smile on his face, lips parted to reveal the slight gap between his front teeth. “Okay, then _you_ tell me a vegetable to plant.”

“Ah,” Jon flounders, one hand coming up to gesticulate uselessly, “I-I-I only really know… what’s _not_ a vegetable.” Martin makes a sound of mock outrage and Jon rushes to suggest, “How, how about--lettuce?”

“Lettuce?!” Martin cries, the sound absorbed by the empty moorlands surrounding them, a bubble of sun warmed peace. “That’s--literally, Jon, that’s the most boring thing you could’ve possibly said!”

“You’re right, you’re right. Er, what do you think of…” he trails off, completely uninspired. “What even _is_ a vegetable, I mean, really?”

“Not a tomato or squash, apparently.”

“Or peppers.”

Martin groans and rolls onto his back, arms splayed wide. It strikes Jon as odd, then, to see him under the gentle light of the sun, and not the flickering fluorescents of the Archives. It’s nice. “What about carrots, or beets?”

Jon wrinkles his nose at the mention of beets, but. “I think that works. If you enjoy the taste of dirt, that is.”

“Hm. Do you… do you think that an avatar of the Buried…?”

“Could, what, thrive off beets?” Jon pauses to consider his own dietary needs. They’d at least need to _eat_ something. “I don’t see why not.”

“Huh. Maybe, maybe not those, then.”

“Mm. Better not.”

Martin rolls his head to look at Jon. Bits of dry grass and shreds of broken ivy stems cling to his hair, and a fine coating of dirt gives him a hazy, blurred-edged look. A smeared graphite sketch. “I think we’ve lost the plot, a bit,” he says, and Jon can’t stop the smile, tragically fond, he feels curling his lips. “Not that I mind. It’s… nice, y’know? To just… be, I guess.”

Jon does know, and he feels guilty when he gets to his feet a few minutes later and offers Martin a hand up. “We should probably get back to it,” he says, apologetic. Martin sighs, and takes Jon’s hand.

“For the record,” Martin says, dusting off his arse, “I want to plant tomatoes in the spring.”

“If you like,” Jon says, and tucks the information next to his heart. Winter, spring, the seasons turn on. Even if they no longer live here, in Scotland or the cottage, Jon would burn the world to give Martin his vegetable garden full of fruit.

* * *

It’s early afternoon by the time they get the generator sorted out. First to be turned on is the water heater, then the fridge. They then spend ten or so minutes trying all the lamps and switches in each room, just to see what works. None of the switches do anything; a strange cosmetic touch. Seems as though the lamps are there for a reason.

They’ve turned on the gas for the cooker and moved on to cleaning the house, room by room. Maybe it would be faster to split up the tasks, but after this morning's row, Jon is reluctant to leave Martin and Martin doesn't seem to mind Jon tagging along.

Which is a relief. One doesn't just shrug off months of self- and supernaturally-imposed isolation over the course of two anxiety-filled days. Jon is glad that his presence doesn’t seem to chafe Martin the way it did at the Institute.

They’ve hardly been out of arms’ reach of each other for most of the day, spent even less time out of sight. Jon’s not sure if that’s weird or to be expected.

The bedroom and connected toilet were the first to be cleaned; Jon, with some squirming apprehension, gathered the bleach and scouring pads hidden below the sink and tackled the stained bath while Martin took the toilet and sink. They pried open the small, warped window to air out the heavy, acrid stench of cleaner. They dusted the bedroom and placed their bags in the bottom of the single wardrobe, bemoaned the late hour when they realized they didn’t have time to wash the sheets before bed. Not that either of them will sleep much.

Martin took down the seascape in the hall, really just a smear of greys and muted blues upon a canvas, leant it so it faced away. They grimaced at the stains on the wall, idly traded guesses as to which were blood and which were… not, then continued on.

Now they’ve moved to the living room, where Martin looks on as Jon sweeps the floor vigorously, having already wiped down the coffee table and the fireplace’s mantle. A snowglobe of a Scottish piper stands proudly on the mantletop, pulled out from where it fell between the woodpile and the fireplace, surrounded by a scattering of sea glass.

It’s. Cute. In a tacky, on the nose sort of way. Almost as sweet as Martin’s small, private smile when he had found the thing.

Jon sweeps the last of the dust and dirt out the front door and tucks his hair behind his ears with a huff.

“Right, then. Cushions?”

They strip the sofa of its cushions and lug them outside to beat with the broom. The wind has picked up and the sky has become overcast, a deep grey shadow to the clouds that promises rain. Soon.

During Martin’s turn with the broom, Jon leans against the stone of the cottage, still pleasantly warm from the morning’s sun, and takes in the lines of him: brows drawn low in concentration and sleeves pushed up over his forearms. It’s all very Canadian lumberjack and somewhat jarring to see him out of his typical jumper-and-slacks ensemble.

“This is,” Martin pants between swings, “ _really_ cathartic.”

Dust clouds the air with each stroke before being snatched away by the wind. “I never would have guessed. Martin Blackwood: brutalizer of cushions.”

“Yep.” Swing, _thump,_ plume of dust. “And I take _perverse_ pleasure in my work.” He straightens, offers the broom to Jon. “Wanna give it a go?”

“Hm… I suppose.” The broomstick is a faded red aluminum that feels brittle and fragile in his hand. Jon gives the cushion a tentative swat.

“Oh, come on.”

“I don’t recall commenting on your technique,” Jon says, gently tapping the cushion again just to be contrary.

“You kind of did though.” Martin slumps against the cottage in much the same fashion as Jon had, eyes falling half-shut. "You've got to, y'know. Put your back into it, and all that."

"Thank you, Martin," Jon says, drily.

"I’m just saying. You're not gonna hurt it."

"It's hardly the most sturdy of tools." Regardless, Jon swings the broom with a bit more force and a small spray of dust goes flying.

"Look at that, I knew you could do it."

Jon ignores the unhelpful commentary and starts to beat the dust out of the cushion in earnest.

The thing is, though, is that Martin was right. It _is_ therapeutic. All the confusion and frustrated helplessness and impotent energy Jon has felt since before the Unknowing seems to bubble up and out, a pot he hadn't even realized was simmering on the hob.

It's unsurprising. Jon has always felt better after a walk or a few minutes of anxious pacing. He's never been one to sit still. But with the acceptance of just how unsafe the world really is, dealing with the question of his dwindling humanity, and his inability to trust himself in public lest he extract a statement from someone undeserving of a lifetime of relived trauma, he's had few productive outlets for the energy that builds up and makes him twitchy.

He's never been a violent man, but it also feels good to just _hit_ something.

"Better?" Martin asks when Jon pauses, heaving for breath.

Jon nods, then gasps out, "Much."

"Hand it over, then."

They trade off beating the cushions senseless, and eventually Martin starts to add silly little flourishes of the broom that make Jon roll his eyes in exasperated fondness.

"You're insufferable," he tells Martin, who just shrugs, his step lighter than it’s been all day. They collect the cushions, smashed into a more sensible shape and smelling fresher than they have in what's probably years, and take them inside as the sky breaks and the first drops of rain begin to patter down.

“Good timing,” Martin comments as Jon locks the door. Jon hums and they both deposit their cushions. Martin gives his one last smack with both palms, then smooths the fabric out slowly. He straightens, and Jon glimpses the way his eyes screw shut as he stumbles, hand flying out to steady himself on the back of the sofa.

“Martin!” Jon rushes forward and takes him by the elbow, other hand landing on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Slowly, slowly, his face relaxes and he squints his eyes open. “Yeah, just--hah--just dizzy.”

“O-okay, um. Here, s-sit down.” Jon guides him down and sits next to him, knees brushing, fingers worrying at Martin’s flannel-clad shoulder. “Is there--do you need anything?”

He shakes his head. “No, no, I think I just--what time is it?”

“What time…? Almost six. Why?”

“Haven’t eaten since breakfast.” Martin breathes out a quiet laugh. “You’re a bad influence.”

“Oh. _Oh._ Should I start dinner?”

“No, I can, just let me--” he moves to get up, but his face is pale and Jon pushes him back by his shoulder. He scowls. “Jon, I can still--”

“No, I know, I just. I worry about--” Jon stops, breathes deep, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late.”

“I’m a grown man. It’s not your job to, to worry about me and make sure I eat,” Martin says. There is something off in his voice.

“Perhaps not,” Jon says, quietly, and Martin exhales. _I’d like it to be,_ he does not say. _If I don’t, then who will?_

The irony of the situation is not lost on him.

“Let me up?” It’s spoken like a question, but the tone of it is all wrong. Flat.

Jon jerks his hand back from Martin’s shoulder, folds it into his lap. “O-o-of course.”

Martin stands. Breathes carefully through his nose. Lack of sleep and food must be playing hell with his balance. “Look, how about we… Dinner. Do dinner, um. Together?”

“Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

A dented soup pot is unearthed from the kitchen and together they dump in cans of black beans and corn and diced tomatoes and chicken broth to make a sad, bland soup. It’s not a job that’s big enough for two, exactly, but it allows Jon to keep a close eye on Martin as he opens can after can.

“I can feel you staring.”

Jon, who is supposed to be stirring the soup as it heats, jumps guiltily. “Sorry.”

“Mm.” Then, “It’s what you do, though. Isn’t it?”

“E-excuse me?”

“The whole staring thing. That woman told me, you know: _He was all eyes.”_

“I-I don’t--”

Ruthless, Martin barrels on, “You didn’t used to stare this much. I mean, yeah, it was always--intense, when you’d look at someone, but it was never in the eyes, or very long. That’s changed.”

“Martin, what are you getting at?”

He shrugs. The pot of soup, forgotten on the cooker, does not get stirred. “Dunno. You just. You’re different, now. You apologize a lot.” He laughs, short, sharp. “You know, there was a while there where all I wanted was to hear you tell me you were sorry, and you’ve done it, what, four times today? And all it’s done is make me cross. Or… sad. I dunno which, everything is kind of,” he makes a vague motion with his hand, “right now.”

“I-I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me either.” A pause, a groan. “Ugh, god, that’s not how I wanted to say all that. It came out all wrong. Just, just forget it.”

“I don’t know that I can,” Jon says to himself, then realizes the space is small enough that Martin probably heard anyway. “Look, for what it’s worth, I _am_ sorry for how I treated you. The things I said. It… it wasn’t fair of me. I was stressed, and then scared, and, and in denial, and I--no, no, I’m not going to make excuses. You didn’t deserve that. _Any_ of it. Not from me, or Tim, or, or Elias, or anyone else. So. I’m sorry, Martin.”

Martin is shaking his head before he finishes. “No, that’s not--I didn’t say all that to, to make you _apologize,_ or something.”

Jon runs a hand through his hair, pulls hard on the ends. He can feel his control slipping, a bit. “Then why _did_ you say it?”

“I don’t know, Jon! It’s just that _you’re_ being weird and _I’m_ being weird and this is all so much after, after everything, when I didn’t even expect--” A frustrated sound, far back in his throat. “I don’t know! It’s hard, all of this. I didn’t think I’d have to, to remember, or, or figure out--”

“How to be human?” Jon asks. Martin deflates. He steps passed Jon to grab the wooden spoon that rests atop the pot and give the soup a stir.

“Yeah.”

“I think I understand.”

“Hah. You have a pass, though. I didn’t even take the last step towards being an avatar, but I’m still so _bad_ at being a person.”

“That’s not true, Martin.”

“It is, though! I spent--so long, with everything like it was o-on mute. Playing in the background, but I didn’t have to pay attention, not if I didn’t want to. A-and then _you_ came and found me and it was like a, a window shattering, and when things are good--like in the garden, earlier--they’re _really_ good, but when they’re bad, it’s, it’s too _much_ and then I _snap,_ and I didn’t used to be like this!”

“Oh, Martin…” Jon reaches out to touch his forearm, spoon still gripped tightly in his fist. He brushes his arm, hesitates, then wraps his fingers around it and gives Martin a slight tug, an invitation for a hug.

An invitation Martin accepts, wrapping his arms around Jon’s shoulders, and the spoon ends up near his ear.

Jon gathers up two fistfuls of the back of Martin’s shirt. “It’s alright if you’re different, Martin. People change, and I… I think that’s okay.”

“Not if your best attribute is being _steady_ and _reliable,”_ Martin says, and it’s so, so bitter.

“Reliable doesn’t mean static,” Jon says, sharply, then gentles his voice. “Besides, I’ve always thought you were more trustworthy than either of those.”

A wet laugh. “Maybe not so much at the beginning.”

“Maybe not,” Jon admits. He presses his cheek to Martin’s shoulder and feels him rest his temple atop Jon’s head.

“Will you… will you say it again?”

“Hm?”

“The, the trust thing.”

Ah. “I-I trust you, Martin. At times less than I should have, at others possibly more than was wise. I, ah, t-trust you, to, to do what you think is right and… keep me human. By--by being you.” Martin pulls away slightly and his eyes are big even though he’s got his contacts in and wet with tears and crinkled with the smallest of smiles and something goes wobbly in Jon’s chest. “I… I trust _you.”_

The neglected pot of soup is just beginning to show the first signs of bubbling. This moment, all warm and dirty arms and gently falling rain and the light, homey scent of beans and corn, seems to stretch like time has lost all meaning. “Can I… can I kiss you?” Martin asks, shyly.

This moment, held dear and timeless, slips out from Jon’s grasp and shatters across the warped hardwood floors.

Jon gapes at Martin.

Martin’s eyes widen and he backs away, dropping his arms from around Jon’s shoulders. “Sorry, is--is that too much? Too fast? I’ve been trying to take it slow, but I, I thought it s-seemed, um, y’know, a-appropriate, sorry! We--we don’t have to, if you’re not, not comfortable--”

“Martin,” Jon grinds out, “ _what are you talking about?”_

If possible, his eyes widen even further and Jon blanches even as Martin begins to babble, “Well, I’ve read some of the statements and listened to the recordings, so I know that love can beat the Lonely, if it’s strong enough. And you came for me and we just… walked out, so I figured that the, the general love you might feel for, for a fellow human being _probably_ wasn’t strong enough. And I told you I love you. And with the Lonely’s hold broken I could see that maybe… you might… feel the same?”

A beat of silence. Then two, three.

Jon breaks, says, “God, Martin, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to--” right as Martin asks, small and quiet, “Have I been reading this all wrong?”

“What? I-I, no, no, it’s--you said loved!”

Martin’s eyes flick around the room, not resting on anything for longer than a moment. “Yeah? And?”

“ _Loved,”_ Jon emphasizes, “past tense.”

“Oh. Did I?” His gaze finally lands on Jon, wary. Then he tucks his chin back, as though Jon struck him. “Really? _That’s_ what you get hung up on?”

“I--what?”

“Jon, you’re so--” he covers his face, speaks muffled through his palms, “I loved you, I love you, have done, am currently, will probably always do.”

“A-ah.”

Martin’s hands slide up into his hair and form two fists there, the very picture of distressed disbelief. “Seriously, I wasn’t thinking properly when I said that. Why would you believe anything influenced by the Lonely? You know it lies!”

Well, that’s just unfair. “I-I don’t know! I’m not--good, with these things. I didn’t know Georgie and Melanie were dating until I showed up, desperate and uninvited at their door!”

Martin stops tugging at his hair. “They are?”

“... Yeah.”

“Oh. Good for them.” Martin shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter--well, I mean, it _does, obviously--_ But, the thing is, Jon, that I _love_ you.”

And Jon can’t help himself when he asks, miserably, “Why?”

“Why? Why do I--look, there aren’t enough hours in the day to explain to you all the reasons I love you, okay? I just. Do.”

Jon laughs and it’s a wretched little thing, sounds like he’s been eating glass and washing it away with salt water. “Simple as that?”

“Simple as that.” Martin picks at the knobbly handle of the spoon he’s apparently just realized he still holds. “Just. Tell me if I’ve got it wrong?”

It feels like standing on a precipice, a strong wind at his back, the world swaying with each gust: leaning further and further forward. “You don’t.”

An explosive sigh. “Good. That--that’s good.” Martin almost smiles, drops the spoon on the cramped counter with a clatter and takes a step closer. The kitchen feels so small. “And that kiss?”

Inhale, exhale, tip over the edge. “Please.” And then Martin takes another step and he’s _right there,_ tucking a piece of hair behind Jon’s ear, sliding two fingers along his jaw to tilt his chin just so and then they’re kissing and _oh._

It’s nice.

Dry, gentle, a bit awkward because they’re both out of practice. It makes that twisted up something Jon carried out of the Lonely relax, burs picked out from the tender meat of a palm. Jon’s toes curl in their socks and Martin hums when Jon’s hands finally settle on his waist. He’s playing with Jon’s hair, the hand that’s not rubbing a thumb along the hinge of his jaw, that is, and he gives it several tiny little tugs. Jon shivers.

Jon breaks the kiss and rests his forehead on Martin’s shoulder and laughs. Martin wraps him up in another hug.

“Good?” Martin asks.

“Y-yes. Highly, ah, satisfactory.”

“You’re the worst,” Martin says, and the fondness there makes Jon’s heart sing.

* * *

They trade kisses until dinner is ready, splayed out on the sofa like a pair of teens, then eat together, sat once again at the kitchen table. The silence is not heavy nor does it last long; Martin asks some inane question that they debate at great length and it’s a pleasant change, to talk about little nothings that have no ramifications for the world at large.

Dishes are a quick, joint affair. Martin washes and Jon dries, but mostly he watches how the tendons in Martin’s hands flex and shift beneath their coat of suds and forces himself to not reach out and cup them between his own.

Once the kitchen is tidied up (and they _do_ dust the counters and Jon dutifully puts the cans back into their cupboard), they retire to the bedroom.

“This is okay, right?” Martin asks in the doorway and Jon haltingly brushes his fingers across his bicep and says, “Very.”

They brush their teeth at the same time, crowded in front of the mirror. Jon can’t take his eyes off the side-to-side, up-down motion of Martin’s reflected brush, the buildup of foam at the corners of his mouth, can’t believe that he gets to bear witness to something so painfully private. Martin weathers the attention patiently, spits, and gives Jon’s brush, hanging half-forgotten from his mouth, a pointed glance.

Jon rushes to catch up and Martin laughs softly as he goes about removing his contacts, unfolding his glasses from where he’d carelessly dropped them that morning. He then begins the process of washing his face and Jon spits, rinses his brush, and shifts his weight uncertainly before starting in on finger combing his hair.

“You know,” Martin says, one cheek covered in soap, face wrinkled in open disgust as he watches Jon ball fallen hair in his hands to toss in the bin, “it wouldn’t get so tangled if you put it up more.”

“I’m aware,” Jon says, scraping his nails along his scalp. “I usually put it up, at least before bed, but. Didn’t pack any elastics.”

Martin purses his lips. “I _might_ have one? Let me check.” He ducks out of the room and Jon is left blinking at where he’d been. He returns fairly quickly, bright yellow elastic held triumphantly in hand. “Here you go.”

Jon takes it, looks slowly between it and Martin’s short hair. In fact, he’s never seen it longer than his jaw, curling softly around his ears.

“What? Everyone goes through a greasy, long-haired phase. You just hit yours later than most.” Martin folds his arms across his chest, red creeping up his cheeks.

Jon takes the mental image of Martin with long hair, pulled back into a curly ponytail, and carefully files it away to be revisited at a later date.

“Thanks,” he says instead, ignoring the teasing jab at his hygiene. Speaking of which… “Would you like the bath first, or…?”

“Oh, uh, honestly? I’d forgot about that.” Martin squints, thinks, hums. “You first. I take a long time.” He finishes washing his face, starts to pack up his things, but stops to point a stern finger at Jon. “Don’t use up all the hot water, okay?”

Jon scoffs. “I make no such promises.”

“I know where you sleep,” Martin threatens, but he slips away before Jon can reply.

Jon closes the door most of the way, hesitates, then latches it shut. He turns on the bath’s faucet and waits patiently as brown, stagnant water pours forth. It’s as he’s in the middle of stepping out of his pants that he realizes that he has no shampoo. Martin has set out his by the bath, cheap and off-brand and advertising its “curl quenching” properties. He feels a bit bad, but it will have to do.

Instead of plugging the drain and having a proper bath, Jon folds himself up by the drain and bathes, quick and practiced, from the now-clear faucet stream. He cleans off the grime of the day, then washes his hair with Martin’s shampoo, which smells of synthetic watermelons.

All told, it takes him about five minutes, and he is glad to get out of the bath. The image of those dead spiders will stay with him for a long time yet. 

Jon fetches one of the scratchy towels they stored under the sink earlier in the day, dries off, and dresses in his pants and pajama shirt, hair dripping wetly onto his shoulders. Martin looks surprised when he steps out, bent over the blank page of a notebook.

“That was… fast.”

Jon shrugs. “I’ve had practice.” He steps aside and gestures for Martin to take his turn.

He slides into bed as Martin closes the door. Most of the way. It’s an odd habit and Jon resolves to ask him about it in the morning.

His hair is a wet curtain about his shoulders, so Jon wrings the ends out, idly takes in the way water beads and falls to speckle the blankets. It will be a nightmare to sleep with; he’ll probably awake to find it wrapped around his neck, doing its level best to strangle him. If not that, then it will be a mess tomorrow morning, dried into knots that would make his grandmother weep in shame. There’s a reason he prefers to shower early in the morning.

Martin hadn’t been lying, when he said that he takes a long time in the bath. Once again, it’s not terribly late, creeping up on nine o’clock, but the physical and emotional labors of the day are catching up with him. Jon blinks forcefully to drag himself from his stupor when the door reopens and Martin steps into the room, wet hair sticking up wildly.

“Oh. Hey,” he says when he notices Jon blinking in the lamplight. “Were you waiting up? Sorry.”

“No, it’s.” Jon sighs. There’s not really a need to lie about such things anymore, is there? “Yes, I suppose I was, but you don’t need to apologize.”

Martin climbs into bed and stretches his arms out in front of himself, rotating his hands to make his wrists pop. “Think all that admin stuff gave me carpal tunnel.” He turns to Jon with a slight smile that turns a bit confused as he takes in Jon’s partially dry hair, ends beginning to flip whichever way they like. “Thought you were gonna put it up?”

“I can’t put all my wet hair on top of my head, Martin. I’d look like an idiot when I take it out.”

“You could braid it?” Martin offers.

Jon pauses. “I don’t actually know how,” he confesses. Martin makes a considering noise.

“I could do it, if you like?”

Now there’s a thought. When he was young, Jon’s grandmother would draw a comb through his neat hair with a brusque sort of professionalism, heedless of any knots that might cause Jon’s eyes to prick with tears. When he had dated Georgie, he’d been far more interested in playing with her hair than she his. Other than that, there was the time Daisy had gripped him by the hair and pressed a knife to his throat and how Nikola had irritably tied it back when it got in the way of her “moisturizing regiment.”

The thought of Martin’s wide, gentle hands buried in his hair sounds rather nice.

“I--if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all!” Martin says, brightly, and from the excited gleam in his eyes, Jon realizes this isn’t a wholly selfless act. “Here, um. Sit on the floor--just like that--and I’ll…”

Martin’s knees bracket Jon’s head as he sits, cross-legged on the floor, and he swallows. This feels much more intimate than he had imagined, and the thought of someone at his back and looming above him makes the skittish, animal part of his brain nervous.

Then Martin slides his hands into Jon’s hair, gently scraping it back and away from his face, says, “Can’t believe neither of us thought to pack a brush, or even a comb,” and Jon relaxes, shoulders falling out of their slight hunch, because really, it’s just Martin.

“Terrible oversight,” Jon agrees, shutting his eyes to bask in the feeling of soothing hands petting through his hair.

Instead of quickly sectioning and plaiting his hair at the base of his skull, Martin starts at the crown of Jon’s head, fingers careful but sure. Each gentle tug sends goosebumps sprawling across the back of his neck.

“Where did--” Jon pauses, tries again, mindful of his questions after his slip before dinner, “Ah, I’m curious as to where you learned this.” Martin’s hands still, just for a moment, then pick up again. When he sections off a piece of hair right by Jon’s ear, his fingers graze the shell, and Jon shudders.

“I used to do my mum’s hair, when I was younger and things weren’t so…” he trails off and Jon bites his lip.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Later, I grew my hair out, and then I practiced a bit with that.” A tug and release that suggests a shrug. “Pretty standard stuff.”

“Well. I think you’re doing a, a fine job.”

“High praise from someone who hasn’t seen the finished product.” To illustrate, Martin runs his hand not currently holding the braid through the rest of Jon’s loose hair. It’s delightful.

“You’ve yet to make me cry, so there’s that, at least.”

“Sensitive scalp?” There’s a bit of a tease in Martin’s voice.

“A bit. My grandmother thought she was gentle with it, but…”

“Is that a universal thing?” Martin puts on the airs of an elderly woman, “‘Oh, don’t squirm so much, you’re just being dramatic!’”

Jon breathes a small laugh. “It must be.” A hand appears in his field of view and Martin makes a little grabby motion.

“Elastic.”

Jon slips the band off from where he’d stowed it around his wrist and hands it over. With a few quick, practiced motions, Martin ties off the braid, then hands the end of it to Jon for inspection. It’s a little uneven, but tight enough it won’t slip out in the night.

Martin smooths the pads of his fingers along the crown of Jon’s head one last time. “Yellow’s a good color on you,” he says, and seals it with a kiss to his hair. Jon turns wide eyes up to him and he pauses, twin spots of color slowly spreading across his cheeks. “Too much?”

Mutely, Jon shakes his head.

“O-oh. Good.” Martin scoots back to his spot and pats the bed. “Get up here?”

Jon climbs back up, fingering the interwoven sections of the braid as he goes. “Thank you, Martin,” he says, once he’s tucked back in bed. He considers for a long moment, then leans over to kiss Martin on the cheek before jerking away, his own blush fiery on his skin. Martin covers his cheek with a hand, mouth a little ‘o’ of surprise. “Too forward?”

In a nice, symmetric parallel, Martin shakes his head, and Jon feels he might explode.

“Right, then. Goodnight, Martin,” it’s brisk, harsh, and Jon winces. “I-I mean--”

Warm, fond, Martin replies, “Goodnight, Jon.”

Then Jon turns out the light and they shift to lay down to sleep. The bed feels too large yet too small.

The dark is just as thick and heavy as last night, but it does not fill Jon with the same dread. He knows the front door is locked, but it doesn’t matter, because nothing sinister could happen on a night like tonight. He won’t allow it.

Outside, the rain continues to patter on the packed dirt of the garden, drum on the roof of the cottage. When the moon rises, it will catch on the droplets coating the window and turn them to thousands of raw diamonds: rough, brilliant, and precious.

“Jon?” Martin asks.

“Hm?”

“I was thinking, and I forgot to ask last night: Don’t you need to take out your contacts?”

“What?” Jon props himself on an elbow to peer at Martin’s vague shape. “Martin, I’ve never worn contacts in my life.”

“I thought… What happened to your glasses?”

Oh. That. “I, ah. Don’t need them, anymore.”

The pause that follows seems far longer in the dark. “And here I thought the Institute doesn’t cover vision.”

Startled, Jon laughs, loud and genuine, and drops back down onto his side, closer to Martin than before. “I turned in my receipts from the Unknowing. Claimed my expenses, got perfect vision out of it.” Maybe it’s in poor taste, but next to him, Martin chuckles and shifts so he’s facing Jon.

Half hidden by the cover of night, Jon traces the round curve of Martin’s cheek with his eyes. He imagines the way his hair will fall against his forehead and the way his eyes will crinkle when he smiles in the morning light that is still hours away.

It’s Jon’s turn to whisper, turned bold by the dark, “I’d like to kiss you,” and Martin’s turn to breathe back a, “God, please,” and Jon’s turn to close the distance and kiss him, close-mouthed and sweet, first on the corner of his lips in a slight miscalculation, then the center. Jon does not back away when they part, instead rests his forehead against Martin’s so they share the same air. It’s quiet, and intimate, and Jon does not want to run.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he tells Martin.

“I’m glad you are, too.”

Martin wraps an arm around Jon’s waist and drags him in close and Jon lets their legs tangle together. Neither of them sleep for a long time, but when they do, it is together.

**Author's Note:**

> would jon’s pov be this flowery? probably not, but who doesn't love getting lost in imagery? also, my flavor of post-lonely martin is Mood Swings Galore. he's relatable like that
> 
> NO ONE LOOK AT ME EVER but also i can be found on twitter [@chitalpas](https://twitter.com/chitalpas) (and tumblr [@humbleboar](https://humbleboar.tumblr.com/)!)
> 
> thank u v much for reading <3


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